


Act of Consummation

by Sakiku



Series: Acts [3]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Character Death, Other, Snuff, Spark Sex, Sticky Sex, Tactile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 06:51:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sakiku/pseuds/Sakiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Prime is a Prime, not a warrior. The war is going accordingly. But with enough sacrifice, there are ways to make a Prime a warrior.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Act of Consummation

**Author's Note:**

> If you have overlooked it in the warnings, here it is again: there is snuff in this story. Not snuff in the sense of someone getting off by fucking someone to death with a barbed hook, but snuff in the sense of someone deliberately initiating sex although they know they will deactivate during it. Actually, deactivation is the whole purpose of it.
> 
> I built this story as a kind-of sequel to 'Act of Creation', just that I decided to switch universes from G1-ish to Movie-ish in this one. I don't think you need to read 'Act of Creation' first to understand this, but maybe you will enjoy it, too.
> 
> That said – let's begin.
> 
> Prompt from tf_anonkink: [ http://tfanonkink.livejournal.com/7561.html?thread=8337033#t8337033](http://tfanonkink.livejournal.com/7561.html?thread=8337033#t8337033)

The day Sideswipe and Sunstreaker stand before him in grim determination, is the day Optimus has feared ever since the two ex-gladiators joined his faction.

“Do you _want_ to lose the war?” Sunstreaker growls, his swords flicking in and out of their sheaths. Restless. Impatient. “Or do you want to wait until I deactivate out in the field because you're too _squeamish_ to get your plating dirty with some gladiator scum?”

Optimus flinches. His office in their Iacon base feels too small all of a sudden with two fierce frontliners filling most of the space. “You know that's not – “

“I damn well know how it is!” Sunstreaker shouts, and if Sideswipe had not put a restraining arm around his twin's shoulders, Sunstreaker would have leaned forward and planted his servos square on Optimus' desk. “You and your Primely attitude are a _liability_! You think you can afford to fight without the intent to kill, to be kind and honorable just so that you can pride yourself on having the moral highground?”

Despite vorns of practice of remaining calm in the face of enraged council members, Oprimus nearly loses the battle with himself. Sunstreaker's words echo too many of Optimus' own thoughts, his doubts in himself and his course of action. Because the war isn't going well. Far from it. Megatron is razing one city-state after the other, and all the Autobots can do is run from one fire to the next and try to give the civilians enough time to get out before they are inevitably overrun.

His only defense is the core axiom he always clings to when thinking on this matter. “I will not become like Megatron.”

The golden mech snorts. Snarls. “You're right – the way things are going right now, you'll never become like Megatron. That's because his troops will _obliterate_ our side within the vorn, if he doesn't have you killed long before! You realize that he has never acknowledged you on the battlefield? That he hasn't even fought you personally yet? That's one of the most serious insults a gladiator can deal, and that's because you're _weak_ , Prime!”

Optimus can't quite keep his features from hardening. “I am not weak.”

“But you aren't strong enough, either! Tell me, who do we have who can face Megatron one-on-one? Prowl and Ironhide have sheltered you so far, but how long do you think they can keep that up? There's only so much that Prowl can do to neutralize Megatron with tactics alone, and Ironhide's barely out of the repair bay before Megatron puts him back in there again!”

Truth. And it hurts all the more because neither Prowl nor Ironhide will say anything. They just look at him after battle with increasingly weary optics. Optimus would like nothing more than to cringe away, to shout that he is only Prime, and that of course no bot can face the Lord Highprotector one-on-one because that is what the Lord Highprotector has been built for!

But, if he wants to survive, if he wants their cause to survive, he doesn't have that luxury anymore, does he?

Keeping the emotions out of his fields, Optimus tries to ignore how his spark clenches and spins in his chest. “And you think that this will improve if I can fight him, but lose one of my warriors in return? One of the very few who can keep the Seekers in check?”

“Newsflash, Prime: you are going to lose me anyway!”

Once again, Optimus flinches. Yet another truth he knows, but which he has been ignoring so far. Sideswipe flinches, too, but the silver bot's optics remain unfailingly locked on Optimus' despite the way his arm tightens around his brother's shoulders.

Sunstreaker isn't talking about defecting, or maybe falling in battle. No. Sunstreaker is referring to how his spark is close to critical failure, and worsening every orn.

Because, despite the myths, there are no split-spark twins. Sparks are always – always – created whole, be it from the Allspark or through budding by creator-sparks. The splitting comes afterwards, committed by mad mechs who just can't wait for their turn. They think they are Primus and can create two lives from one, without the Allspark, without one of the extremely rare creator-sparks involved.

Less than a tenth of the 'twins' survive longer than a decaorn, their halved sparks too weak to support an entire frame. Most of them don't survive the separation itself. The remaining ten percent live a half-life torn between the pain of their injury and the knowledge that they can never – never – be whole again throughout their function. It is in the point-zero-zero-one percent range for split-spark twins to become older than a hundred, maybe two hundred vorns.

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker are nearly a thousand.

Optimus clears his vocalizer, shutting his own pain away behind strong firewalls. This is why he has feared the day Sideswipe and Sunstreaker stand before him in grim determination ever since the two ex-gladiators joined his faction: because all of them know that every vorn the twins keep living is a vorn stretching already incredibly small odds further into the impossible. And because the war is going so bad that Sunstreaker feels he has to sacrifice what little he has left for their side to have a chance.

Optimus draws on the hard-won composure he has learned as Prime and _looks_ at them truly for the first time since they entered his office. Both of them have small battle damage littering their plates, but nothing needing Ratchet's attention. Otherwise, the medic never would have let them out from under his supervision.

On first glance, they seem to be in amazingly good repair and refuelling for front-line warriors fighting on the losing side. On second glance though, there are glaring differences between them.

While both of them are grim and determined, Optimus can see Sunstreaker's wild optics, the jittery twitching of his weapons, and the way his brother's touch doesn't help more than mitigate the absolute worst of it. And he can feel the broken and jagged EM fields seeping through Sunstreaker's plates, and he wonders how Sideswipe can stand to be so close to those hurtful frequencies all orn long. If the currents are any indication of the state of Sunstreaker's spark, Optimus can't fathom the pain the golden twin must be in. He doesn't need Ratchet to tell him that Sunstreaker's time is close.

Nonetheless, he feels compelled to ask, “Are you certain?”

Sunstreaker crosses his arms in front of his chest and just glowers. “Haven't you been listening? I've got a single fragging vorn at the most, and you think I want to spend it watching those Decepticon fraggers win?”

Optimus nods despite the way it makes his spark twist in pain, and turns to Sideswipe. “And you?”

“I am sure.”

Sideswipe's first words since they entered his office. He doesn't add anything else, because that one affirmation has been made with total conviction. It is enough to let some of the tension in Sunstreaker's frame bleed out and have him lean briefly against his brother.

Apparently, the twins hadn't been as united as their front had suggested.

//Ratchet?// Optimus pings, not so much to ask for confirmation but rather to _tell_ the medic.

Anger. Distraction. //What!?//

//Sunstreaker says it's time.//

Hesitation. //Slag. I'm in the middle of –// More distraction. Then satisfaction. //Ah, there you go. Thought you could drain dry on _my_ repair berth, eh?//

//Ratchet?//

Emotional pain. //Yeah, yeah, I got it. When and where?//

Optimus focuses back on the twins, who apparently have been listening in on his conversation. It is exceedingly rude to decrypt communications of others, but Optimus can't bring himself to scold them.

Sideswipe grins at him without remorse, while Sunstreaker grunts a “Now. I'm not having this discussion again.”

//We will be in my quarters,// Optimus adds for Ratchet's benefit. No time like the present, indeed. No time for Optimus to shy away from what he needs to – will – do.

Ratchet pauses. More emotional pain. //I'll be there as soon as I can.// The medic terminates the conversation.

//Thank you,// Optimus sends into empty space despite the connection already having closed.

There was no protest from Ratchet, because as the twins' medic he knows as well as, if not better than Optimus, what odds they have been fighting. Ratchet once told Optimus that he thinks that, if the twins hadn't been split, they probably would have been a very strong creator-spark. Even so, with a spark so powerful it can regularly give some of its substance to make new mechs, the separation injured something critically. It just took longer for the dysbalance to show itself.

For now, it is just Sunstreaker. Apparently he got the smaller half. Or the more instable one. Whatever. But who knows how long it will be before Sideswipe's spark fails, too?

Optimus doesn't want to dwell on the chance that Sideswipe will deactivate this evening, too. Instead, he accompanies them out the door and lets Red Alert know he will be unavailable for the foreseeable future.

They encounter no one on their silent way to Optimus' quarters. Optimus can sense that Ratchet is talking to the twins over com for a bit, but contrary to the ex-gladiators Optimus isn't rude enough to listen in. They don't mention anything to him, so he assumes it is private.

Letting them enter first, Optimus locks the door with a code that will only allow Ratchet's medical override. They can leave at any time – actually, he would prefer they leave and spare him the duty – but none may enter.

The twins are exploring his quarters, inspecting them. The large recharge berth, the desk with the chair made to Optimus' dimensions, the shelves on the wall with datapads and crystals and gimmicks of all kinds. The washrack adjoined to the main room.

“Thought a Prime's quarters were bigger,” Sideswipe comments while fingering a malachite shard Optimus has picked up from the ruins of Praxus' Crystal Gardens. The green carbonate hydroxate is reflected by his silver plating, giving Sideswipe an unhealthy greenish tinge.

Optimus shrugs. “They could have been.” He could have demanded an entire floor of their Iacon base, and they gladly would have given it to him. But he doesn't _need_ that much space. And especially not when they have trouble housing all the refugees as it is.

Sunstreaker's attention hasn't wavered yet from the only true luxury in the room: a wall-sized metal sheet etched with a view of Cybertron as it can be seen from Luna 1. Somehow Ironore, the artist, managed to imbue color into the metal by growing a thin layer of iron minerals directly on its surface. All of them are being mined on Luna 1. Black space of roughened magnetite, a grey Cybertron of pyrite, with red and brown highlights of hematite, yellow and green highlights of fayalite.

Optimus doesn't know enough of the various minerals to identify them all, but the composition of color and crystal structure paints a picture of Cybertron that is unique in its liveliness. He still mourns Ironore's deactivation in the fall of Tarn.

“Energon?” he offers belatedly.

Sunstreaker snorts and obviously wants to say something, probably how it would be a waste of resources to give energon to a dead mech walking. But a nudge from Sideswipe keeps him quiet.

“Sure,” the silver twin accepts for them both.

Optimus busies himself with filling three cubes of high-grade, and when he turns to hand them their drinks he still doesn't feel ready to face the situation. Nonetheless he opens his fields wide and strong and surrounds the twins with acceptance drawn from the inevitable.

Their splintered frequencies scratch brokenly at him, but gradually the edges smooth out. Sideswipe's shoulders relax a fraction, the hard and bright knot of pain inside him easing a fraction. Sunstreaker's wild optics and twitching actuators calm a bit, but eventually his restlessness reasserts itself.

He sets his half-finished cube aside and finally turns away from Ironore's metal painting, facing Optimus squarely. “Are you gonna wait 'til I rust stiff or what?” he asks snidely.

His fields though paint a different picture. One of twisting emotions, too many to name. There is dread, yes, but it is being eclipsed by a slowly budding hope and longing and ever-present pain. Optimus doesn't think Sunstreaker remembers the last time he was without pain. He doesn't think Sideswipe does either.

There are many answers he could give Sunstreaker. 'Are you sure?' and 'We don't have to do this' amongst them. But the mech would perceive them as an insult, as doubts in his determination, although it is Optimus' doubts in himself that spawn the questions.

He vents slowly and and lets none of his anxiety show in his fields. “How do you want to... do it?”

Anger flares into Sunstreaker's fields like a thermite eruption. “Say it like it is, Prime!” he snarls. “I'm going to overload my spark into you, and I'm going to deactivate doing so, and if you don't use the knowledge that gives you, I'm going to haunt you forever!”

For a moment, Optimus' fields freeze. It is not like Sunstreaker's words are news, but to hear everything voiced like this...

This is the other half of the insane plan the twins came to him with when they joined. They were sparked and bred to fight, having done nothing else for their entire function. All their coding and their nanites and their sparks revolve around it, just like Optimus' revolves around creation, mediation, and being the spiritual leadership for their people.

They saw the problem from the first orn. A spark created to guide in peace will probably never be able to rise up to the necessities of war. They were going to extinguish soon anyway, escaping the odds for as long as they had so far. And they wanted their deaths to mean something, especially when someone could make use of their knowledge, of their skills.

Optimus never managed to talk them out of it. The most he has been able to do is to convince them to put it off until there is true necessity.

With Sunstreaker's increasing deterioration and the worsening turn of the war, true necessity has just about arrived. All of a sudden he isn't sure anymore whether he really wants to do this, whether he can stand another life mingling with his, foreign code and nanites infiltrating him, just so that he can become the leader the Autobots need.

Not at the cost of extinguishing a mech.

Not at the cost of possibly losing himself.

But he has promised. And for the Autobots to survive, this is probably the only way. Primus knows how often Ironhide has despaired in making Optimus more useful on the battlefield. If Optimus just could make better use of his frame, he would be able to be the foil against Megatron they so desperately need. There is a better than even chance that Sunstreaker's sacrifice will give him exactly what he needs.

And Sunstreaker deserves to go out in the way he wishes.

Still conflicted in spark and processor, Optimus draws heavily on his creator-partition. It is the processor-set that normally only exists for the two joor he is allowed to pull a new spark into life. It hardly pays any attention to the past and has no thoughts towards the future – just an eternal present filled with love strong enough to split his own spark without harming it.

He is surprised how it nearly sings in joy at the idea of being given the ultimate gift. Of being _given_ a life instead of having to make it.

Without realizing, his fields unfreeze and smooth out yet again. He even manages a soft smile, as if he wasn't asking someone how they want to be deactivated. “How do you want to merge with me?”

The relief in the air is almost palpable.

“Thought you'd never ask,” Sunstreaker smirks above the turmoil in his own fields and stalks closer. “Here.” He hands Optimus a cable from his wrist. “Put that in.”

Optimus plugs it in his mirroring wrist port and offers his own cable. Sunstreaker just shakes his helmet and pulses a load of static charge through the hardline. Optimus feels it tingle in his frame, the tension cables in his forearm twitching a bit. He leans into the invisible caress and calls more and more of his creator-partition to the fore-front. He will take any help he can in making this as good for Sunstreaker as possible. It is the least he can do for a mech he is about to... for a mech about to... for a mech close to deactivation.

His creator-partition has no trouble accepting the ultimate gift though, and so Optimus loses himself in it.

With a smirk, Sunstreaker's engine revs higher and he sets up a constant flow of charge to Optimus. There is no data exchange yet, Sunstreaker's firewalls as high as they ever get. But that will come too, in time.

“Help me get him to the berth.”

At first Optimus thinks Sunstreaker is talking to him, but then he remembers that Sideswipe is still in the room. He chuckles a bit. “I can still walk.”

“But it's more fun like this,” comes the answer, and flanked by two front-line warriors that are both individually at least as strong as he is, Optimus has no choice but obey.

Not that he would want to struggle, but the center of his creator-partition is still overwhelmed by the gift Sunstreaker is going to bestow on him. The doubts have been partitioned away, together with the slightly betrayed thoughts that it is utterly selfish of them – Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, the Autobots – to ask him to do this.

But he is Prime. And Primes serve their people after all.

Reverently he gazes at the silver and golden frames, exact mirror images of each other, their fields rolling with hard determination that, yes, they _want_ to do this. Sunstreaker pushes him down, never letting go of the wrist where his hardline connects them. Sideswipe crawls on ahead of him, wedging himself against the wall to make space for Optimus' larger frame on the berth.

Both of them watch curiously as Sunstreaker fumbles at his own wrist, finally managing to set an energon shunt into place.

“No sense in wasting it,” he grunts in explanation.

It hurts a bit when the other end goes into Optimus' lines, but it isn't like he hasn't felt that small sting before. Many times before. In a way, it is actually familiar and comforting to his creator-partition. The only difference is that Optimus usually is on the other end of the line, the one sharing.

He can't help but pulse his gratitude for that first of many gifts, nourishment for spark and processors. Both Sunstreaker and Sideswipe preen at the appreciation in his fields to a degree that Optimus wonders if no bot has ever thanked them before.

The golden twin stretches out on his other side, the berth barely wide enough to accommodate all three of them. It is only then that Sunstreaker hesitates, slightly unsure of how to proceed. They all know how it needs to end (Sunstreaker's nanites in Optimus' valve and Sunstreaker's spark in his chest and Sunstreaker's code in his processors and Sunstreaker's energon in his lines), but how they get there is still open.

“Will you allow me to pleasure you?” Optimus asks, thick charge already lining his vocal processor. Not a small amount of it is due to the constant energy flow from Sunstreaker.

“No.” A glance at his twin has Sideswipe grabbing Optimus' other wrist and pin it to the berth.

When Optimus doesn't struggle but instead floods his fields with need in the hopes of convincing him that way, confidence returns to Sunstreaker's demeanor.

“No,” he repeats and smirks. “I am going to pleasure myself and maybe Sides too, and you are going to watch and you won't be able to do a single thing about it.”

“Please,” Optimus nearly moans, his optics locked onto their silver and golden frames.

They turn to each other with the familiarity of vorns, finding sensitive spots without even trying and stroking them just _so_. Because they are to both sides of him, they have to lean across his frame to touch each other, giving Optimus one of the most erotic sights in his functioning so far. Nimble digits claw into loosening armor plates, squeezing wires and scraping across sensitive protoform. There is a horizontal seam just below Sideswipe's chest plates that has him nearly overload just from Sunstreaker scraping one of his claws along it. There is a similar seam down Sunstreaker's sides that does the same in return.

If Optimus had harbored hopes of them forgetting about him, maybe even freeing him due to their preoccupation with each other, he would have been disappointed. Both their grips are still as strong as ever, their servos only clenching tighter in their pleasure.

Optimus can feel how aroused they are getting simply from the tactile stimulation. And he can't do a thing but lie there and watch them and feel their increasingly pleasured fields. And, not to forget the constant stream of energy Sunstreaker is feeding him. It is slowly starting to pool in his capacitors and his resistors, and the feeling of a charge building with hardly any physical stimulation, is maddening.

But two can play that game.

He flares his fields deep into their frames, showing them exactly what they are doing to him. Sunstreaker barely chokes back a moan, and if Sideswipe's efforts at circling Sunstreaker's interface panel become more frantic, Optimus considers that a point in his favor.

He isn't quite sure anymore if it truly is a victory though when they both stop and turn all their attention on him. Nimble digits are mapping his plates, starting from the obvious chest plates, and ending at small plates at the inside of his elbow that he never would have thought to be as sensitive to light scraping as they are.

When Sunstreaker finally slips between Optimus' pedes and sinks into his slick and ready valve – when did his interface panel open? – Optimus is nearly insensate with pleasure. He gasps and moans, his fields flaring out and pulsing together in rhythm with his spark. Being penetrated has always felt so good, and his valve resizes to adjust to Sunstreaker's exact dimensions. It makes the experience even more intense.

Through his haze, he can hear Sunstreaker groan, too, even as the mech pulls out and shoves in again a couple of times, just to feel the sheer pleasure from the friction. If Sunstreaker wasn't putting his entire weight on Optimus' wrist with the linked cables, and if Sideswipe wasn't holding down the other, Optimus would surely have tried to draw the golden mech closer to feel _more_.

But he can't, and so he is helpless as Sunstreaker stops once he is fully seated. The only thing he can do is send out his love to the wonderful, beautiful mech hovering above him, hoping that his fields will convince Sunstreaker to take more action.

Sideswipe's free servo is stroking both of them, dipping into his twin's armor seams for a bit, only to trail down and look for yet another exquisitely sensitive wire in Optimus' build.

“Please,” Optimus begs completely unashamed as he tries to buck up into Sunstreaker. He parts his chest plates in an instinctive bid for more, arching his backstruts.

Sunstreaker's arms are trembling as he lowers himself to rest against Optimus, and it is only belatedly that Optimus realizes the tremor isn't from holding back but from weakness. How much energy has the twin given him? How much energon? Optimus is starting to feel overenergized already. He wants to be sad, knowing that things are so close to the end, but his spark can't help but overflow with love and wonder and amazement. So beautiful.

Then Sideswipe nudges his brother, and Sunstreaker's armor parts with a grating sound against Optimus' plates. Both their fields tremble, Sunstreaker's from a last flare of trepidation and insecurity, Optimus' from anticipation. Their size difference makes merging and valve penetration at the same time nearly impossible. But when Sunstreaker stretches as far as he can and Optimus cants his hips to give him more freedom, their opened spark chambers meet and Optimus' consciousness nearly goes out in a flare of white.

There is so much pain and hurt pulsing in Sunstreaker's spark that Optimus wonders how he has been able to function so far. There is also so much determination and bravery and, of a fashion, love. Not love as Optimus knows it, all-encompassing and as irresistible as the flow of time, but love of a wounded animal that bites and claws and fights all the fiercer for what is _his_.

Instinctively, his spark chamber spirals open wider, and his laser core pushes itself forward.

A static-ladden scream wrenches itself from Sunstreaker's vocalizer as the outer layers of their sparks finally meet. It is incredibly painful for unshielded energies to touch like this, but at the same time it is ecstasy beyond belief. Optimus can feel everything Sunstreaker is, everything he wants to be, and he can't help but respond with wonder and awe at the sheer strength inside the fractured spark. He wants to soothe the hurt, to protect and heal, to help it become whole again.

Slowly Sunstreaker pushes himself even closer, groaning with the strain and yet not flinching back as Optimus' spark reaches deeper for him.

There is hunger inside Optimus, fed by the charge and the energon flowing into him from Sunstreaker's tiring frame. There is love inside him, so overwhelming he thinks he must burst at any moment. He arches and prays to gravity to press them closer, but in the end it is Sideswipe who answers.

Extracting himself from his position wedged between Optimus and the wall, the silver twin climbs up until he kneels behind his brother. Then, in a smooth and obviously practiced motion, Sideswipe hilts himself in Sunstreaker's valve and lays himself across his twin's back.

Weak as Sunstreaker is by now, he can't do anything but let out another static-ladden groan of pleasure. His spark, pushed even closer into Optimus', nearly explodes with the ecstasy flooding his frame. With his freed servo Optimus can finally reach out and trail his digits across smooth golden finish and strong plates. He wants to cling and pull Sunstreaker even closer at the same time as Sideswipe sets up a steady rhythm inside his brother. Every thrust pushes Sunstreaker's spike deeper into Optimus' valve and his spark into Optimus' chest.

And Optimus' spark answers, meeting all the pain and despair with gentle acceptance, cushioning the sore edges and drawing out the determination and the gift Sunstreaker wants to leave with him as his last wish.

Firewalls breaking down one by one stop holding back the flood of data spilling through the hardline, and it is all Optimus can do to catch it all and not lose a single byte to inattention. He shunts it to yet another partition where he can inspect it later with his full attention. For now though his spark is reaching harder and harder. It feels like he is reaching _into_ Sunstreaker's spark, into the essence of his being, and the only thing Sunstreaker can answer back with is love and an ecstasy so pure that it triggers both their overload.

His spark jerks against Optimus', even as his spike releases deep into his valve, flooding Optimus with the nanites of his creation. With a hunger he has never known Optimus' frame reaches for them and incorporates them, even as his processors drink in the data through the hardline and his spark completely surrounds Sunstreaker's in a desperate bid to make them _one_.

He succeeds. With a last flare of terminal ecstasy, the pain vanishes and dissolves into Optimus. It is the moment that Sideswipe overloads into Sunstreaker's suddenly limp body which still sings his final flare of electromagnetics, but which is going to turn mute and gray shortly.

Optimus doesn't mind when Sideswipe collapses atop his brother's deactivated frame, the lonely twin left finally bleeding his grief into Optimus. He reaches up a servo and strokes Sideswipe's cheek spar, just like Sunstreaker would have done. He still feels Sunstreaker inside him, which is probably what the twin's goal had been. He can feel how Sunstreaker's nanites inside him go to work, and how the data inside him begs to be used. Only time can reveal though if whatever remains of Sunstreaker inside Optimus, is enough to keep Sideswipe on this side of the well.

For now, both he and Sideswipe keep warming Sunstreaker's lifeless body between them until Ratchet overrides the door lock with a grim face.

With plenty of snark but incredibly gentle servos – couldn't they have waited for him to be there? – he pulls them apart, pulls the dried energon shunt out of Optimus' lines and the plug out of his wrist. (Why couldn't they have done this in his med-bay, there he would have at least had the proper equipment to monitor them!) Then he helps Sideswipe pull the frame that had once been inhabited by Sunstreaker's spark off him.

Optimus just keeps lying there, staring at the ceiling and forgetting to close his spark-chamber. Ratchet has to do it manually for him. It feels so full in there.

Instead of taking Sideswipe away to be monitored though – how was his spark going to cope with the loss of its other half? – Ratchet pushes the only remaining twin to lie down on the berth next to Optimus. It is more reflex than anything that makes Optimus lie back to back with Sideswipe, just like Sunstreaker has always done, so that they can keep watch in all directions.

“Recharge,” Ratchet commands, and finally Optimus hears the grief lining the medic's vocals. It is implicitly stated that Ratchet will not leave their sides until they come out of it again.

With fields pulsing from tiredness and spark-deep loss, they obey.

* * *

 

_Over the course of the next three orns, Optimus gets Ratchet to upgrade his little more than ceremonial armor to full frontliner thickness. He practices hand-to-hand with Ironhide, and the first time he manages to pin the weapons master on the ground, he is almost tempted to complain about his finish getting dirty._

_He has had to create an entirely new partition to accommodate Sunstreaker's code, because it just conflicts too heavily with Optimus' own base coding. But once he is done and has had Ratchet's and Jazz' help ironing out the rough edges, he has a fully functional warrior personality to accompany the warrior's frame Sunstreaker's nanites are helping him build. None is more surprised than Megatron the first time Optimus charges his Lord Protector in battle, swinging his newly-grown plasma sword with far more skill he should rightfully have._

_And if the hole that Optimus' presence can't quite fill inside his twin hurts, Sideswipe never says anything. He just keeps surviving and beating the odds, and maybe one day he will ask for the same favor that Sunstreaker has. Optimus will gladly accommodate him, because he has learned yet another truth. One that Sunstreaker never intended to teach him._

_He is a creator, yet the end is nothing to fear. In fact, it can be celebrated just as the beginning was._

_He is Alpha, and as long as he functions he will be Omega too to those who wish it._

_He is Prime._


End file.
